Morphomes as a level of representation capture unity of exponence across the inflection-derivation divide

Abstract

Inferential-realisational analyses formalise a language's inflectional morphology in terms of a mapping on the one side from a lexical index and set of morphosyntactic properties to on the other side a phonological form. Round (2009) has argued that the Australian language Kayardild requires the postulation of an intermediate level of representation, identified with Aronoff's (1994) notion of a "morphome". This morphomic level serves to express patterns of identities of exponence abstracted away from the actual forms of exponents and its use makes possible the expression of certain identities of form which defy expression by means of Rules of Referral (Zwicky 1985, Stump 1993). This paper considers identities of form that span the inflection-derivation divide in Kayardild and shows that they too are coherently captured by assuming that a morphomic level of representation is present. A consequence is that lexical stems must possess a morphomic representation in addition to their representations on other levels.